ensuring that contracting requirement and capabilities are synchronized; ensuring contracted unity of effort; and avoiding contracting duplication and competition for limited resources.

In addition to this memo, ADUSD(PS) has signed memorandums of understanding with the combatant commands to define the general roles and mission of the contract support planners. For example, the contract support planners (except for the planner at U.S. Joint Forces Command, who is primarily supporting training and exercises) are assigned responsibility for developing Annex Ws and assisting combatant commanders in identifying the requirements for contractor services. We found that the contract support planners’ roles had not yet been institutionalized in DOD’s higher-level operational contract support guidance. We reported in November 2008 that the contract support planners, as part of DOD’s organizational approach to requirements definition, had not been institutionalized in DOD joint policies.25 We also reported that DOD, the Joint Staff, and some combatant commands were unclear on who should be identifying and defining requirements for contractor support and what level of detail should be included in the combatant commanders’ plans. The department is in the process of revising joint policies to provide some additional direction on planning operational contract support. For example, the department is revising DOD Instruction 3020.41—DOD’s comprehensive policy document on the management of contractors supporting deployed U.S. forces—to include a requirement that military planners develop orchestrated, synchronized, detailed, and fully developed contractor support and contractor integration plans as components of feasible operation plans and operation orders. However, the roles and responsibilities of the contract support planners are not identified or described in the draft instruction. Similarly, the roles and responsibilities of the contract support planners are not discussed in Joint Publication 4-10. Several officials voiced concerns that until the contract support planners’ roles and responsibilities are institutionalized in DOD guidance, their ability to influence those outside of the logistics community will be limited, hindering their ability to effectively integrate operational contract support across operation plans.

We found uncertainty in how the contract support planners program will be institutionalized with regard to funding and staffing. As stated above, the contract support planners were allocated to the combatant commands